Well, I am taking an intro to Java at a local community college. In class, we use a text editor (Crimson Editor) and I can't find any kind of documentation on it (tutorial, user's guide). It is very frustrating because I think I get the gist of Java Programming in general but haven't yet been able to practice. Based on my my reading, it seems to be recommended to stay away from the IDE's to start and focus on learning the actual programming language.

Crimson Editor probably has a setting to select the language (Java), so that the syntax highlighting is correct. But as Satou said above, you shouldn't have to worry about much more than "File > Open" and "File > Save."

What specific issues are you having? Are you able to compile and run a Hello World program using this editor?

"We're kind of on the level of crossword puzzle writers... And no one ever goes to them and gives them an award." ~Joe Strummersscce.org